Do you do any market research (find your audience)?

[dreamerquest]

Hi Devs,

As the title has suggested,
Do you do any market research before you start working on your game?

I have spent a few days in reddit and here, looking for discussion on game genre + niche/kinks?.
But I can't find any info (I'm also new to both reddit and f95).

I'm choice of tool is Unity in 2D shooter or puzzle.

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

 

[MissFortune]

Generally speaking, while it doesn't hurt to advertise in spaces where your niche/kink is accepted (think something like TFGames for Transformation/Sissification games or HypnoCollective for Hypnosis/Mind Control content), you don't find your audience. Your audience will find you.

It doesn't hurt to search for games that are similar to what you want to make in theme, kink, or subject. Search game threads, reviews, and see what players liked about the game. Not necessarily the content, but the game itself. Try to imitate some of it while retaining your identity. Use what they liked and didn't like to your own advantage. Learn from those that did it before you to make your own work better.

 

[dreamerquest]

When research kinks/niche, it kind of scares me, and sometimes take days to recover.
Usually I need to mentally prepare for it before opening any links.


> Search game threads, reviews...

Thanks for the suggestion.

I discarded the idea because I originally wanted to chat with potential players, to find out if there is an audience. And when I have a demo/mvp, I can immediate ask them to play test to provide suggestion.

Since then, I have discover "nsfw" or "adult" tags in gog and itchio with user comments. With 3 sources of user comments I should be able to extract some useful info.

There is also curators and groups in Steam.
Have you use any of them to help get the words out?

 

[osanaiko]

"Research your market" sounds like you are approaching a game dev project as a way to make money.

With a few extremely rare exceptions (who also put in multi-1000s of hours of work), the expected total return for an amateur adult games dev is near zero.

For those few devs who don't give up in the first 6 months, lifetime revenue in the low $1000s of USD - and all this can be yours in return for 100s to 1000s of hours of labor.

Now there are ways around this. For example, if you have some combo of these three things:
- be organised and skilled
- have existing skills with content creation (high quality GAME design/writing skills OR art skills >>> coding skills)
- have money to invest in outsourcing content

AND RUTHLESSLY chase the lowest-common-denominator shovelware quality and release on steam with clickbait images/game titles... then you can probably make minimum wage returns on your time invested/money invested.


All snark aside: you should only choose to do indie adult game dev if you want a dirty little hobby to spend years on, and in return you get nothing but some strangers' gratitude and maybe a small amount of dollars AND deal with stupid messages or bad reviews from a lot of whining complainers who steal your shit.

The only known way to put up with that shit is... you are making some specific content that YOU really like and want to share with the world. i.e. Intrinsic motivation.

 

[dreamerquest]

> you are approaching a game dev project as a way to make money.

Yes. I'm or at least I want to give it try before giving up the gaming industry itself.
Many years ago, I develop games professionally for consoles.

4 years ago, I launched an indie mobile game.
Technically the game was a success - we pushed the graphics to the max on mobile devices.
But the game financially ruined me.
Hence, I have a focus on making money.

However, there are other things I wanted from this project.
1. Identify if there is an audience with a simple game idea I mention (past mistake)
2. I want to build a game with community feedback (I was on my high horse in the last game)
3. Because of all those Shovelware quality action games in adult genre, I think I have a chance to standout.

 

[Lerd0]

..yes.....
..it matters a lot.....

 

[Eezergoode]

It really depends on a few things. Are you making a game because you have a story you want to tell, or are you making a game because you want to make money? As stated above, this is not a great venture for quick, easy money, or, tbh, any dependable income, but there are always the lucky few, so I wouldn't say it is impossible to do it. Second, is your story just a vehicle for the porn, or are the adult scenes a natural part of the story? Where is the priority? The lewd content, or the story? If you are making a game to tell a certain story, then the market research will offer limited assistance, mainly for where and how to market your game. If you are looking to try to cash in on current kinks and trends, then yes, market research can help you refine your content to target certain audiences. Keep in mind though, that if you try to put too much variety in, you will dilute your content and will lose interest from a lot of people who might otherwise be interested due to a particular kink or fetish, simply because you aren't able to put enough of it in. That being said, I can't offer much helpful advice because I don't involve myself in market research anymore. I worked in the field years ago, and really learned how complex it is, and also learned just how easy it is to get skewed results. You can ask people the same question two different ways, and get two different answers.

 

[dreamerquest]

Eezergoode.
You raised a few good questions here.
My initial thinking is pretty rudimentary:
- Tried a few lewd games that feels fun to play,
- Narrow down a genre that I can do as a solo dev.
- A game mechanics that I can improve

So, content is kind of secondary.
AI will play a part of it, but that alone is not enough.
I would like to include animation (such as Spline 2D), but not something I want tackle yet.

As for content niche, I want this to be guided by community suggestion.
And yes, I won't want the game to cater for all niches.
It's not pleasant to have as a straight person see gay content or vise versa.
But if there are strong interests on opposite spectrums, then I'll most likely cut a different App so it dedicated for the niche. ie:
- <Name> for straight,
- <Name> for LGBTQ,
- etc.


Anyway, talk is cheap, I'm no body.
But I hope to deliver a simple demo to continue the conversation.

Again, appreciate the suggestion.

 

[OfTheFence]

I know I’ve read plenty of reviews that could be used as great market research. Wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

 

[osanaiko]

I know I’ve read plenty of reviews that could be used as great market research. Wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

There are definitely some good reviewers, but also a lot of absolute brainlet morons shitting up the place with their oblivious takes. The only place where you find worse opinions on games is in the thread comments section.

You need to spend some time mentally translating some of the reviews:

"I hate this game because it has too much dialogue" -> "I have trouble reading"

"It says harem in the tags but there was another male in the background in one scene. 1/5 shit game." -> "I've never touched grass"

"The art is total shit why did the developer even bother" -> "While it's true that this amateur game I pirated has interesting gameplay and good writing, I'm upset that the developer didn't spend his own money for commercial quality artwork so I could jerk off without reading anything or using my imagination."

"The game description, and developer notes. and the genre tags all stated this game has NTR. But I don't like NTR, so I'm rating it 1 star" -> "*incoherent mumbling and drooling*"

 

[DuniX]

Here is how to do market research with guaranteed success:

• Step 1. Search Tags for games with a particular style of gameplay or content that you want to play.*
• Step 2. Do not find any games like that.
  Congratulations! You just discovered a market hole, if you make that game you will sell gangbuster**.You can sell any type of shit as there is no competition.
• Step 2-If: You find a game like that.
• Step 3. Play it.
• Step 4. You get abysmal sense of disappointment interspersed with boredom.
  Congratulations! You have found a garbage game! Instead of Satisfying you it does the Opposite increasing your desire to play a game that is actually good. There are many victims like that left abandoned in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. It is up to you to save them with an actual good game!
• Step 4-If: The game is actually good.
• Step 5. Unfortunately you are in some tough competition, you could try to make a better game then that, but I recommend going back to Step 1 and try another search criteria.

* Warning! those with "shit tastes" may have mixed results.
** Warning! depending on the content some games literally cannot sold anywhere.